Landlocked and dreaming in Boise

[Landlockedwave]

Hello from landlocked Boise. We currently have a 22' Vdrive and I have been around small boats most of my life but are looking towards bigger things to come. I had the opportunity to spend some time aboard a Bayliner 4588 in my younger days and fell in love with cruising. Living in Idaho has somewhat hampered that but my wife grew up in Jacksonville, FL and we get out there at least once a year. I find that I enjoy the warmer weather in my advancing years and we are now looking into spending some time exploring the AICW with a dream of cruising the Loop someday. It will be a few years before we can get serious but never to early to start my learning process. I have a copy of Chapman Piloting and have been devouring all of the info. I know there is no replacement for real world experience and we will be renting boats on our upcoming trips to Jax. I am thinking we will start in the 20 some foot range as I am comfortable with that length. Eventually I would love to be in a mid 40' trawler. Looking forward to learning all I can in this forum.

 

[GFC]

LLW, what lakes do you have around you to use a boat? We're 5 hours NW of you on the Columbia River and it offers some great boating. If you're towing, this would be a great destination for a long weekend or a week or so.


The best advice I can give you about buying a boat is this: Buy your second boat first.


By that I mean don't rush out and buy a boat just to be boat owners. If you do that chances are pretty good you'll buy a boat that blows your hair back but doesn't suit your needs well. Then you'll keep it a year or two and trade it for the boat you should have bought in the first place, and take a helluva financial beating on the transaction.


Take your time, do your homework, sit in lots of boats at boat shows and picture them with a few guests, coolers, towels, skis, wakeboards, etc. Don't buy a boat that is too small or doesn't suit your needs. You will be sorry.

 

[Landlockedwave]

LLW, what lakes do you have around you to use a boat? We're 5 hours NW of you on the Columbia River and it offers some great boating. If you're towing, this would be a great destination for a long weekend or a week or so.


The best advice I can give you about buying a boat is this: Buy your second boat first.


By that I mean don't rush out and buy a boat just to be boat owners. If you do that chances are pretty good you'll buy a boat that blows your hair back but doesn't suit your needs well. Then you'll keep it a year or two and trade it for the boat you should have bought in the first place, and take a helluva financial beating on the transaction.

Take your time, do your homework, sit in lots of boats at boat shows and picture them with a few guests, coolers, towels, skis, wakeboards, etc. Don't buy a boat that is too small or doesn't suit your needs. You will be sorry.

GFC, we have a couple of reservoirs fairly close (Lucky Peak, Arrowrock, Anderson and Lowell) and my family owns a cottage on a high mountain lake (Payette). I have not spent any time on the Columbia but will be looking into it going forward. We are currently waiting for our new Nautique to be built and delivered. This will be our 5th boat and likely our last ski boat. All of your suggestions are dead on and apply to our decision process when we started this journey. I am assuming all of these lessons will apply to larger vessels as well?

 

[GFC]

Absolutely they do, and the larger the boat the bigger financial hit you will take when you find yourselves with a boat that doesn't fit your needs and you have to sell it.


Hook that new Nautique up behind your tow rig and head for the Tri Cities. It's an easy tow, all freeways, and there are plenty of spaces up here to wakeboard, cruise and sightsee. Some pretty good hotels and restaurants and I've been known, on occasion to spring for the first round.

 

[Landlockedwave]

Just looked at the area and we will need to make a trip or two there next summer. I have been craving larger bodies of water to navigate and areas that have food and drink on the water. We just don't have that here. Any info or direction you could provide would be much appreciated and I believe at that point, I would be buying the first round

 

[Ken E.]

If you head farther up into central Washington, Lake Chelan and the Wenatchee area would be great fun for a boat like yours.

 

[Landlockedwave]

So I have been looking into chartering and Seattle has a ton of options compared to the Jax area. I see that most charters also have lessons available. My wife and I are liking the idea of flying up for long weekends and chartering for a few years. This would allow us to start experiencing the cruising life a few years earlier than planned and give us an idea of what we want in a vessel.
I am looking for reccmmendations to accomplish this. Any feed back on all the different charter companies? Tia

 

[IronZebra]

We are landlocked in Albuquerque and wanted to learn and charter also in the PNW.

While we will be looking for a trawler in a couple of years, we decided to do a sailboat learn and cruise because in our research it appeared that the ASA had a more formalize training curriculum than we could find for power boating. This past June we did a week and completed ASA 101, 103, and 104 with San Juan Sailing.

San Juan Sailing is out of Bellingham, WA and I can give them a high recommendation. They also have power classes and charters. We may go back next summer and do one of the power classes.

 

[dhays]

Hook that new Nautique up behind your tow rig and head for the Tri Cities. It's an easy tow, all freeways, and there are plenty of spaces up here to wakeboard, cruise and sightsee. Some pretty good hotels and restaurants and I've been known, on occasion to spring for the first round.

Don’t forget the great wineries around where you are as well!

 

[fractalphreak]

So I have been looking into chartering and Seattle has a ton of options compared to the Jax area. I see that most charters also have lessons available. My wife and I are liking the idea of flying up for long weekends and chartering for a few years. This would allow us to start experiencing the cruising life a few years earlier than planned and give us an idea of what we want in a vessel.
I am looking for reccmmendations to accomplish this. Any feed back on all the different charter companies? Tia

About 5-6 years ago my mom and step dad wanted to do some cruising with us. Two years in a row they chartered boats from Anacortes Yacht Charters. The first was a smaller runabout (21 feet or so) that had a rudimentary v berth. The second year they did a 31' Camano Troll. I can't speak to any training/classes - my mom didn't do that - they had prepared on their own. They had good experiences with the charters at the time. In both cases the boat owner met with them to do familiarization. With the Camano they followed us up to Sucia Island (about 3 1/2 hrs at trawler speed) where we spent two days at the state park, then on to Roche Harbor for two days. I was jealous because I didn't have an autopilot, they did and loved being able to monitor and enjoy the trip without manually steering the whole time.